Just Like Being There: 3-D Holographic Videoconferencing

IRVINE, CA -- What if you couldn't tell that the people across the conference table were a thousand miles away? Over the last several years, vendors have worked on making the videoconferencing experience less like a visual phone call and more like "being there."  For businesses with access to high-bandwidth networks, the new Immersion Room from Digital Video Enterprises (DVE) appears to take the illusion of  "being there" a major step further. The Room, which won the Frost & Sullivan 2009 Global Conferencing Telepresence Product of the Year Award, displays high-definition, 3-D holographic-appearing images. Life-size images of people are seen standing and walking about in the 3-D physical space of the meeting room, and 9-foot-wide volumetric 3-D images of presentations can appear to float in mid-air.  Users do not need to wear special glasses. An impressive demo is available at http://www.DVEtelepresence.com.

The DVE Immersion Room is based on an extensive patent portfolio of augmented reality telepresence that places real-time images of people inside the middle of the room. Hidden cameras that aim through the image allow natural eye contact.

"The DVE Immersion Room clearly has set a new standard for the potential realism of telepresence communication," says Paul Waadevig, principal consultant at Frost and Sullivan. "The whole point of telepresence is to simulate a meeting where people forget about technology and get down to business. The Immersion Room is a breakthrough in simulating face-to-face meetings that, literally, makes the users forget they are not all in the same room."

According to a recent report by Frost & Sullivan, the telepresence market is predicted to reach revenues of 4.7 billion worldwide by 2014.